Craftsy Block of the Month (BOM)

By Judy -
In January I saw an email from Craftsy offering a free online class doing a Block of the Month by Amy Gibson. All my friends know me as always finding great bargains at the grocery store and clearance racks, so to find something to teach me how to quilt that was going to be free was right up my alley. I bought a Layer Cake at Joann's called Sunny with beautiful grays, blacks and my favorite yellow in them. I figured I didn't want to spend a small fortune on nice fabric since I didn't know how well I'd be able to piece this together and how many times I'd be ripping it out. Then I didn't know if I'd end up with a 12.5" square piece of fabric in the end. Well I'm thanking my lucky stars that I didn't spend that small fortune because I had to do each of the blocks twice - Ugh! Here are my two first tries at the Asterisk Block and the Wonky Pound Sign Block.



The Asterisk Block consisted of repeatedly cutting the fabric and sewing in strips of the gray. Talk about being scared to be cutting up such pretty fabric this way and that. I thought it turned out great except for the fact that I didn't like that the slash on the bottom left and going to the top right was showing its seams. That really bothered me that such a beautiful block didn't match perfectly. The Wonky Pound Sign Block also consisted of cutting up fabric but not as extreme. Actually this block was much easier but it didn't square up to the 12.5" that it was supposed to do. Doing some investigating I found I wasn't sewing with a 1/4" seam allowance. I assumed that when you have a quilting foot it was automatic - wrong! Back to the drawing board I went with the blocks.



After going slower and following the directions exactly the block turned out exactly the same way with the seams showing. After posting some questions on the forum I heard that everyone had this same issue and it was supposed to be that way. (I don't agree that it should and I'm on a mission to find a tutorial that doesn't have that ugly seam showing on one of the cross strips.) With the correct 1/4" seam allowance my Wonky Pound Sign measured correctly - Yeah Me!

The February BOM is out and I'm excited to jump right in. I'm off to my sewing domain in the basement.

Have a Great Day!

Comments

  1. Celtic ThistleFebruary 2, 2012 at 8:22 AM

    I have signed up for the same BOM (I like a bargain too!) but haven't attempted January's block yet, so interested to hear off the problem with the seam showing. Thanks for the heads up! Love your fabric choices for the quilt, looking forward to seeing your next blocks.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birthday Table Runner

By Judy -
Image
I've been on a table runner kick lately. I had bought three 8 ft. white table runners for only $9.99 from Pottery Barn's outlet awhile ago. They've been sitting just waiting for the perfect project. One of them is a birthday table runner for my buffett. Below is my inspiration that I had pinned on Pinterest . RSH Catalog First things first though I didn't want an 8 ft. table runner, I wanted a 4 ft. one for my buffett, so I cut it in half.  The table runners have mitered corners so I had to finish up the end that I cut off before I could even get to the applique. The original table runner had a 2" hem plus another 1/2" so I had to rip the seam down 10" to give me room to miter the end. I did this on both sides. I ironed the runner really good and then folded in a 1/2" for the first hem. I folded again another 2" to match the hem for the whole table runner. As you can see from the picture above I also made sure that I ...
Read more

Homecoming

By Judy -
Image
I have been sewing but not anything quilting related. I've been sewing for my daughter. I haven't sewn for my children since they were little and I was making Halloween costumes and matching Christmas outfits. It felt so good watching her come downstairs to see the pieces of fabric turn into a beautiful dress.   This was our inspiration: Simplicity Pattern 3878 by Jessica McClintock. Her choice in color was teal. We both decided all the roses that are glued/sewed onto the dress just was not going to be her. She wanted sparkle and glitter. We found the tulle that had glitter all over it and let me tell you that stuff gets everywhere! We've had glitter all over house! The pattern was pretty much very easy to use. I found I had a few questions on how the pattern read when doing the bodice but I quickly figured it out. I had more of a hard time with the fabric being so shiny and slippery that I really had to go slow and take my time. There is boning in the dress a...
Read more

The stockings were hung ...

By Judy -
Image
I was featured on Craft Gossip ! My first love of crafting has to be counted cross-stitch. I started doing cross-stitch right out of high school. 14 count Aida was the cloth of choice! Using those counts and cloths didn't last long when I came across all the different colors of linens, thread counts and patterns. I subscribed to Better Homes & Gardens Cross-Stitch & Country Crafts Magazine many years ago and when I saw the beautiful counted cross-stitch patterns of different stockings I knew I wanted to do it. I didn't even have children yet when these patterns came out so I saved them. Once I started to have children I set out to make each one of them their very own unique stocking. There is alot of back stitch in these stockings because of all the details so I would put the stockings aside when I grew tired of doing them. I dug them out of a box a few years ago along with their patterns and went through them line by line to find where I had not finished them. On...
Read more